Category: Sales & Marketing
IT service providers: How to find your purpose and own your brand
What is your purpose? This is the single most important question every business must answer in order to effectively market and differentiate in today’s experience-driven marketplace. Forget everything else—vision, mission, values, brand pillars, operating principles, strategies, priorities. Get to the...
3 Reasons managed service providers shouldn’t give up on marketing
Too many managed service providers think MSP marketing is as simple as launching a few campaigns and then sitting back to watch the new customers roll in. As long as they get out there and do it, they’ll win, right?...
Ask an MSP Expert: How to start a sales call as an MSP
Q: I set up a sales call with an SMB and need some tips on how to begin the conversation. Should I just launch into my sales pitch? What advice can you offer me on what to say and what...
5 Reasons MSPs need to stop making excuses and start making cold calls
Call it cold calling. Call it telemarketing. Call it prospecting. Call it whatever you want, but start doing it. I’ll bet you just thought of a bunch of reasons why you aren’t using cold calling to grow your business. I’m...
Ask an MSP Expert: How do I respond to an SMB that wants to break up with me
Q: Help! I think one of my SMBs wants to leave me for another service provider. What do I do? Is there anything I can say to convince them to stay? I hate confrontation, but I don’t want to get...
MSPs Beware: Do your research before signing that new prospect
Who is your ideal client? As an MSP, you probably have some standards about the kind of companies you want to work with—say, SMBs with 50+ users, from one of four or five industries, in a period of growth, etc.,...
Ask an MSP Expert: How to make backup mandatory for my customers
Q: I know the value of selling cloud backup and recovery as part of a managed service agreement, but some of my customers don’t get it and say they’d rather skip it. Should I make it a mandatory service for all...
5 Strategies to score touchdowns on every possession with your MSP marketing
While every MSP wants to turn prospects into clients, not every MSP knows how. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, “Only one in 100 IT firms think marketing first, but 100 out of 100 want more leads.”...
Selling Managed Services: Lessons from an Insurance Salesman
I bought life insurance this year. I purchased it from a man who showed up at our new house completely unannounced one afternoon. He welcomed us to the neighborhood and asked us a few questions about why we had bought...
Stop selling managed services
Companies selling managed services is a little pet peeve of mine right now. Managed services is an industry term. It’s a business model, not a service offering. Your clients aren’t buying managed services, they are buying IT support. You don’t...